Donald Trump’s stooge Mike Pompeo has a whole new problem
Just days before the election, a scandal arises about the nature of a secretary of state’s personal emails. It might sound like I’m referring to 2016 – but this is actually happening right now, and the secretary of state in question is the one who’s currently occupying the office: Mike Pompeo. A few weeks ago, Pompeo embarrassed himself and the entire Trump campaign yet again when he said that he was looking to obtain and release more of Hillary Clinton’s emails before the election was over – embarrassing because Hillary Clinton isn’t the Democratic nominee, and because what he proposed was a blatantly illegal abuse of power even if she was running against Donald Trump this time. Now we have a rough idea of why he decided to open his mouth.
According to a new report from NBC News, leaked emails from Pompeo’s wife suggest that she was regularly requesting favors from State Department officials for travel plans and restaurant reservations unrelated to the core mission of the State Department. She even enlisted the help of staffers for running personal errands. This coincides with a congressional investigation of the firing of former Inspector General Steven Linick who worked at the State Department and an independent watchdog group called American Oversight that obtained 400 pages of emails from the time Pompeo served as CIA director, suggesting that Pompeo was conducting a significant amount of business using his personal email.
This isn’t even close to the first time someone in Trump’s criminal administration has done this – compromising national security while profiting off of a government position – but coming this close to an election, it’s a reminder of how they embody the worst of cronyism and recklessness when it comes to national security. Let’s vote them out in droves on November 3.
James Sullivan is the assistant editor of Brain World Magazine and an advocate of science-based policy making